Gilbert Keith Chesterton

SAVONAROLA
Savonarola is a man whom we shall probably never understand until we know what horror may lie at the heart of civilisation.

Re­volt in the ab­stract is—re­volt­ing. It’s mere vomit­ing.

“It is things go­ing right,” he cried, “that is po­et­ical! Our di­ges­tions, for in­stance, go­ing sac­redly and si­lently right, that is the found­a­tion of all po­etry. Yes, the most po­et­ical thing, more po­et­ical than the flowers, more po­et­ical than the stars—the most po­et­ical thing in the world is not be­ing sick.”

In the wild events which were to fol­low this girl had no part at all; he never saw her again un­til all his tale was over. And yet, in some in­des­crib­able way, she kept re­cur­ring like a motive in mu­sic through all his mad ad­ven­tures af­ter­wards, and the glory of her strange hair ran like a red thread through those dark and ill-drawn tapestries of the night.

As you also know, his death was as self-deny­ing as his life, for he died through his faith in a hy­gienic mix­ture of chalk and wa­ter as a sub­sti­tute for milk, which bever­age he re­garded as bar­baric, and as in­volving cruelty to the cow.

the ad­ven­tures may be mad, but the ad­ven­turer must be sane

This lib­er­a­tion of his spirit from the load of his weak­ness went with a quite clear de­cision to em­brace death.

He had a new im­pulse to tear out the secret of this dan­cing, jump­ing and pur­su­ing para­lytic; and at the en­trance of the court as it opened upon the Cir­cus he turned, stick in hand, to face his pur­suer.

Through all this or­deal his root hor­ror had been isol­a­tion, and there are no words to ex­press the abyss between isol­a­tion and hav­ing one ally. It may be con­ceded to the math­em­aticians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thou­sand times one. That is why, in spite of a hun­dred dis­ad­vant­ages, the world will al­ways re­turn to mono­gamy.

You think that it is pos­sible to pull down the Pres­id­ent. I know that it is im­possible, and I am go­ing to try it